Language Interpretation Needs Soar in City Homeless Shelters: Data

 During the past five years, requests for interpretation by phone that were answered by the city’s Language Line or with an on-site interpreter increased more than five-fold in the Department of Homeless Services shelter system, jumping from 18,660 in 2020 to 107,083 in 2024.

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The number of people sleeping in the city’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelter system has shot up over the past two years, with a 30 percent increase over last year, and an 89 percent increase compared to the end of fiscal year 2022.

The new data, included in the latest Mayor’s Management Report released this week (MMR), shows there were 86,000 individuals in DHS shelters during the fiscal year that ended in June.

The uptick is mainly due to the arrival of more than 210,000 migrants and asylum seekers to the city in the last two years, tens of thousands of whom remain in DHS sites and emergency shelters run by other city agencies, though with time limits on their stays.

Asylum seekers represent 37 percent of the DHS shelter population alone, most of them families with children, while comprising most of the growth, 79 percent, since 2022, per report data.

As the DHS shelter system has mushroomed, more people in shelters are looking for language interpreters. During the past five years, completed requests for interpretation by phone with the city’s Language Line or with an on-site interpreter increased more than five-fold in the DHS shelter system, jumping from 18,660 in 2020 to 107,083 in 2024.

“Note that the number of unique requests for interpretation, are not available for on-site Spanish interpretation services that were provided at a number of DHS locations,” reads the report. “As a result, Fiscal 2024 data do not reflect the full scope of interpretation services provided by DHS.”

Advocates say capturing that full scope is complicated because there are many parties involved, such as small and large organizations that provide access to interpreter services using DHS resources or do so on their own.  

DHS explained that people in its shelters have access to on-site interpreters, bilingual staff, and a Language Line that provides interpretation services over the phone.

Despite the rise in service requests and increase in the number of operating shelters, a DHS spokesperson said the agency has not seen an increase in wait times for interpreter services.

Kathryn Kliff, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Rights Project, explained that when people contact them for help, it’s because they didn’t get access to an interpreter at all, not because they had to wait.

“As issues arise in real-time with urgent client needs, we raise those as well,” Kliff said. “They [DHS] do try and resolve them, but I think there are many, many people, many clients, who don’t necessarily have an advocate.”

DHS did not provide information on which languages have been most requested by those seeking interpretation in its shelters.

But advocates and shelter residents have complained about barriers and lack of access to interpreters in shelters for those speaking languages other than English and Spanish, with the arrival of more migrants from Africa over the last year, especially from the west side of the continent.

During a City Council hearing in the spring, hundreds rallied for their language needs and the lack of workforce programs and training opportunities for those who speak languages such as Arabic, French, Pulaar, and Wolof.

While there are options when it comes to verbal communication, when it comes to written materials such as notices, the city is only legally required—by Local Law 30—to translate information in the 10 most common non-English languages across the five boroughs.

“Because Local Law 30 is not covering a lot of the language needs that our clients are facing, they’re not mandated in the same way to provide those documents,” Kliff said. 

“This really is an unmet need,” Kliff said. “There’s a need for additional resources for clients that speak these other languages.”

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